Google search adds a news feed to its mobile home page

Google announces changes to its search product today, related in part to the 20th anniversary of the company. The most important announcement is that Google is redefining its news feed as "Discover". It will be on Google's homepage on all mobile browsers, representing a huge change for the company as it helps to better organize information and helps users understand the context.

Discover will do more to show relevant content – things that are not necessarily recent news. Subject links will allow you to deepen the content you see in the feed. A small slider in the lower left corner of each card will allow you to increase or decrease the amount of news you will see in your feed. Discover also supports multilingual elements, so you can get elements in both English and Spanish in your feed. More languages ​​are coming. Many of these additions appear to come from the redesigned Google News app, which was first introduced at the company's I / O developer conference.

Google also uses computer vision to add more visuals to the search. It has a new format called "Stories", based on its AMP standard. Google says that the stories in search are doubling, which probably means we'll see more in the months to come. The stories will also show up in the search, as well as featured videos that will showcase 'highlights' videos. It creates an auto-progress video carousel, displaying only the relevant section of each video.

Google Images is also receiving an update. There is a new ranking algorithm for searching images. In addition, it will display more "web content" in the search, including specific information on the search results page. The new user interface will arrive at desktop computers next Thursday, September 27th. Google Stories also adds to the search for images.

Google Lens is also coming to Google Images. On the mobile web, you can tap a new Objective button that will detect items in an image and perform a search. You can also crop a specific part of an image to search for it. The example of Google was a library that was in the background of a photo and was linked to sites where you could buy it.

Google also spoke of the importance of research "in times of crisis", with specific reference to natural disasters. SOS Alerts has been in operation for one year now, but Google hopes to make these alerts "slimmer" so that they are sent to people who are more likely to be inundated. It uses AI to more accurately predict where the flood can actually occur. He starts in India to start.

Google also talked about its improved job search product, presenting in a way that suggests that Google could help struggling Americans – with a video editing of wellbeing. The new feature is now called "course", designed to help people find professional training. Google says it "aspires" to provide training links for job searches, starting with a pilot program in Virginia. It is also a partnership with Goodwill for this program.

In addition, Google also introduces new changes in the search for improved online search on a topic over the course of several days. Nick Fox, vice president of products at Google in his research division, explained how this will happen at a press event in San Francisco this morning. Fox divided the changes into three categories: Travel, Collections, and Topics.

The first novelty is that Google is working to show you previous searches that you have done in your search box. Fox talked about how Google is trying to get "answers" to "travel". This is very similar to Silicon Valley's standard dual language, but for Fox, this means that users can continue their research on a topic for several days. Google wants to help users get to a suitable destination.

"People keep coming back to the same subject," he says. Given this, Google will now begin to show parts of your story directly in the search as an "activity map" that will show you previous searches. It will also display a map titled "Related Activity", showing the sites you have already visited and the searches you have already done.

Then there are the "collections", which allow you to place search results in a special viewer, where Google will also display content suggestions. Think of it as Pinterest, but for Google search. He will come later this fall.

Finally, a new "subject layer" is added to the Knowledge Graph, the Google Entity Database on the Web. The new layer will further include some topics such as astronomy and should help users access more advanced content when they deepen a topic.

Google Feed, which now has 800 million users, has sent 2.5 times more traffic to publishers in the past year. The same Google subject layer technology also applies to this news feed. The idea is that he will be able to show articles that may not be recent, but that will always interest you. (For example, if you are traveling to a new city, Google will show older articles about that city in your feed.) The feed can also use this algorithm to display videos and events.

Today's news comes as Google is increasingly involved in platform politics and democracy. He refused to send his CEO to Congress for hearings, resulting in the rehabilitation of an empty chair. President Trump has accused the company of presenting biased search results. More attention has been paid to the company's plans to bring a research product back to China – a product that would be censored, which would make it easier to link search queries to people's phone numbers. Google has even told its employees to delete a memo about the plan.

Very little of this context was visible in the presentation of Google, which was rather focused on the positive. In anticipation of the announcement, Google's director of research, Ben Gomes, presented part of the research story and principles that guide Google's product development. Highlighting Google's progress in matching words, synonyms, and knowledge charts, Gomes pointed out that Google is constantly trying to make people understand what words mean.

Gomes also discussed "neural matching", a technique that uses online documents to help disambiguate imprecise language. For example, on a search for "television that seems strange", Google might know that, in this context, it refers to smoothing movements. This feature launched in recent months affects more than 30% of queries.

With regard to the principles of research, Gomes stated that it was "user-oriented", sought "relevant and quality information", followed an "algorithmic approach" to the classification of information and was strongly tested by the users. But in a gesture towards a part of this drama, Gomes added: "The search is not perfect, and we have no illusions."

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